Spending time on social media sites, such as Facebook, can help students do better in school, according to new research by an education professor at University of Maryland.

In a survey of 600 low-income high school students, Christine Greenhow found that students build bonds when they connect with school friends on social networking sites. She said she focused on low-income students because research on this group is lacking but necessary for creating more equal learning opportunities.

“When kids feel connected and have a strong sense of belonging to the school community, they do better in school,” Greenhow told the investigative reporting website California Watch.

Some students also turn to their social networks for tips about college and career choices.

Her paper will be published in the winter, but the debate is still going strong about whether teachers should use social media in their classrooms.

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education released its National Education Technology Plan, which includes a proposal to use social networking as a platform for learning. Some educators are concerned that the sites encourage students to procrastinate and catch up with friends.

Greenhow acknowledges the pitfalls, but still believes in recognizing the positive side. She’s been studying adolescent Internet habits since 2007, and also found that high school students are boosting their creativity and technology skills through the sites.

Whether social networking is good or bad, many students are using the sites on a daily basis. Seventy-three percent of wired American teens now use social networking websites, according to the most recent data presented by the Pew Research Center in 2010.

NEW YORK — The filmmaker could not get the number out of his head. Even while he was traveling the country to discuss “Shell Shocked” — a movie about children killing children with machine guns in the streets of his hometown New Orleans — it was a number that kept John Richie up at night.
After a classroom of children were found in a lifeless pile, shot to death by Adam Lanza in Sandy Hook, Conn., with an assortment of guns including a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, the country was awash in research and polling and charts about Americans and their guns.

CINCINNATI - Marian Wright Edelman sees this as a “do or die” moment for American democracy. The first black woman to join the Mississippi bar, Edelman led the NAACP’s legal defense fund in Jackson in the 1960s.

Teens who spend time on social networking sites such as Facebook are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or use drugs, says a new survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). The report says:
Compared to teens who do not spend time on a social networking site in a typical day, teens who do are:
Five times likelier to have used tobacco (10 percent vs.

I definitely agree that “When kids feel connected and have a strong sense of belonging to the school community, they do better in school;” however, my concern is that this study encourages students to form these relationships through social media. What about fostering a stronger sense of community in the school itself and encouraging students to build relationships with their peers and school staff in person rather than on the web? I expect the same, if not better results, to occur.

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